One of the unique features of the Nerdle kit is the use of touch-sensitive capacitive-sense buttons, made from copper foil pads inside the case. While meeting with the camp directors to prepare these activities, we decided to try linking the raw information from the capacitive sensors to the on-board piezo speaker.

We added two lines of code, uploaded, and jaws dropped. It sounded like the computers of the future were supposed to sound.

In this guest column, we turn to veteran synthesist and music tech expert Jim Aikin. When Jim wants to do digital synthesis, one of the tools to which he turns is a veritable favorite with a direct-line legacy to the beginnings of computer sound. That doesn’t mean Csound hasn’t kept with the times, though, or that it has to be unfriendly. If you’ve been looking for a way to dive into sound and code, this could be an ideal path.

The Chipophone is a homemade 8-bit synthesizer, especially suited for live chiptune playing. It has been built inside an old electronic organ.

All the original tone-generating parts have been disconnected, and the keys, pedals, knobs and switches rerouted to a microcontroller which transforms them into MIDI signals. Those are then parsed by a second microcontroller, which acts as a synthesizer.

The Morphwiz app from Jordan Rudess takes the concept of the Hakan Continuum – which Jordan was also involved with, and applies it to the touchscreen of the iPhone/iPad to create a totally new instrument, while adding some trippy visuals, effects and a healthy synth engine. Dream Theatre are currently on tour with Iron Maiden in the US, we caught up with Jordan the morning after the night before at his hotel while on the road. He gives us an insight into the features and thinking behind the app.

Musikame has a beta of the souncloud dj player, the easiest way to dj your soundcloud tracks, allowing you to mix tracks from SoundCloud.

The soundcloud dj player includes various controls like pitch control, dj fx, looping, etc.

At this stage all the mixing is done automatically by the app itself: the user just picks the tracks and the length of the crossfade between them. While it's not actually possible to beat-match tracks as yet, the software does have pitch control with adjustable range, FX, looping and reverse capabilities, hinting at more advanced functionality in the future.

Create Digital Music has some exclusive photos of Griid, the controller for iPad that offers four fluid ways to navigate clips in your Ableton Live set.

Peter Kirn writes:

The developers of Griid, the Ableton Live controller on iPad created in association with Richie Hawtin, have shared photos and screen captures early with CDM to give us a look at the upcoming app. Just over a decade after its original inception, Ableton Live itself remains a ground-breaking user interface design. Love it or hate it, it’s a benchmark in thinking about how music apps might look.

Griid is compelling in part because it re-imagines how that central Session View and clip launching might work, now in the context of a touch tablet. Personally, I like the results. As on the Lemur, bold, saturated colors and contrast on a black background are central, of course. It’s also nice to see extraneous visual information removed. And for anyone with epic-sized sets of clips in Live, you’ll like the massive overview.